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In the time since Bucky had been back, things eventually got to a point that felt almost normal. It took a long time and a lot of therapy to get there, of course, but Steve and Bucky were now living what could almost be described as a modern day equivalent of the life they had shared before the war. They were in comfortable, domestic bliss in a small Brooklyn apartment, and life truly couldn’t be better.
While it sometimes felt like everything had changed in the past several decades, some things never did. And one of those things was Steve constantly getting himself into fights.
Something most people didn’t know about Steve Rogers that Bucky Barnes knew all too well was that Steve was a very angry man. The public just saw Captain America, the smiling face of the nation, and it was hard for those people, who only knew him as a symbol, to know him as he really was: angry. Steve was angry about a lot of things, but it was most often bullies. From the big kids on the playground picking on the little guys to the fascist shitheads in charge of the country to the asshole on the news this evening.
While Steve was setting the table for dinner, Bucky was flipping through channels on the TV, looking for something for the two of them to watch when he stopped on a news station to see they were reporting about pride month celebrations. When he realized their opinion on the whole thing was incredibly negative, he grabbed the remote, ready to change the channel again before the next words the man on the television said stopped him in his tracks.
“You know, I bet Captain America was incredibly disappointed when he woke up and saw that this is what became of the country he almost died for.”
Bucky snapped his head around at the sound of shattering glass to see that Steve had crushed the glass of water he’d been holding in his hand.
“Goddammit, Steve.” Bucky rolled his eyes and went to go help his stupid partner.
After they’d cleaned up the blood and the glass and the water, and Bucky had ensured that Steve was in fact okay (physically speaking, at least), Steve started ranting.
“How can he just say that? Like I’m not a real person with my own beliefs! Just projecting his agenda onto me as if that’s okay!” Steve kept on like this for another few minutes, and Bucky just smiled to himself. He loved it when Steve was passionate about things, when he let all his frustration out, when he spoke up about how he felt.
“What are you smiling about?”
Bucky shook his head, still grinning. “You’re cute when you’re angry.”
Steve rolled his eyes but returned Bucky’s smile. He then pretty much immediately continued upon his tirade against the homophobic man from the news.
*****
Later that night, Steve still wouldn’t let the issue go. Bucky found him on the computer reading articles about himself.
“What are you doing?” he asked, knowing full well how much Steve hated being viewed by the people as a celebrity of sorts.
“After a bit of digging, I’ve discovered that apparently a lot of people have used my name and image over the years to promote their agendas.”
“You’re a propaganda symbol, Stevie. They’ve been doing this since the war, since the second you stepped out of that microwave.”
“I know that. I guess I just assumed it had kinda stopped when the war did, you know? Once the propaganda was no longer needed?”
“Steve, people like this asshole,” he said, gesturing to the article currently pulled up on the computer, “and like that guy on the news, they’re always at war with someone. At anyone different from them. And that war never really ends. I won’t tell you not to fight back, partly because we both know you’re going to anyway, and partly because I’m pretty sure you can take that asshole.”
“Pretty sure?”
Bucky smiled, and so did Steve.
“Can I sue them for this? Is this grounds for a lawsuit?”
“Do I look like a lawyer, Stevie?”
“I just don’t want the world to think I agree with those statements.”
“I know, baby. And we’ll make sure they know the truth. In the morning, okay? It’s late. I know you don’t hate the gays. And tomorrow, we’ll get this all settled, and everyone else will know too, alright?”
“I would hope you know.”
“Come on, come to bed with me. Or I might start to think you are secretly homophobic.”
“I love you, Buck.”
“I love you, too.”
*****
When he opened his eyes the next morning, Bucky was greeted by the sight of his beautiful yet stupid partner doing something on his phone with a scowl on his face.
“Morning, sweetheart.”
Bucky smiled at the love of his life. He would never not be grateful for the fact that he got to wake up next to this man every morning.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
Steve sighed, frustrated at whatever he was doing on his phone. “I just opened my Twitter account for the first time since SHIELD set the damn thing up back when they went public about my survival. Apparently, they had someone running it for me all those years, keeping the account boring and as politically neutral as is possible when it’s the account of the guy who walks around dressed as his country’s flag. Until there was no more SHIELD, that is. Then nobody was left running it. The account’s been dormant for a while now, which was probably for the best. But I have things to say, so I’m using it.”
“Is this about last night?”
Steve nodded. “Whether I like it or not, I’m a public figure. People see me as the epitome of good American values. And everyone’s definition of good is different. I can’t go on letting people think mine includes bigotry.”
“Because your stance hasn’t yet been made clear by literally everything you’ve ever done in your entire life.”
“Somehow, no.”
“So if you’re taking control of the situation, why do you still look so pissed?”
“The lovely folks at Twitter suspended my account. Apparently, me posting from my own account is somehow hacking.”
Bucky could tell that Steve was mere seconds away from throwing his cell phone at their bedroom wall in frustration.
“So what are you doing now?” he asked.
“I am trying to get an interview on television.”
“I thought you hated all that.”
“I do, just not as much as I hate being used as a symbol of intolerance.”
*****
It was a few hours later that Steve managed to score an interview that met all of his criteria. In those few hours, he discovered that several absurd and ridiculous conspiracy theories had surfaced regarding his crusade on Twitter that morning.
Most people seemed to believe it was a Stark Industries PR team that took control of the account, doing performative activism to promote the image of Captain America as a man of the people.
But in some darker corners of the internet, there were other takes on the situation. Some believed that the Steve that existed now wasn’t the same one who crashed into the ice all those years ago, and he was actually created by the government to impersonate Captain America and turn everyone into communists. Another theory suggested that Steve had never actually existed at all, and the people were just convinced he did because they’d been told to believe it. Bucky’s least favorite of the theories, after hearing Steve list them all off, was the one that Steve was being mind controlled by HYDRA to say those things.
*****
“You know,” Bucky said as Steve was getting ready to leave home for his interview, “if you want to, I’m completely okay with you telling the world about us. If you’d rather not, or you don’t want to do it in this interview, that’s obviously fine, I’m not trying to pressure you. I just want you to know that if you’re keeping it hidden for my sake, you don’t have to.”
“Are you sure you’re ready for that? For the whole world to know?”
“For them to know that I’m the lucky guy that gets to go to bed with Steve Rogers every night? If I wasn’t ready, I wouldn’t have suggested it. Hell, I’d have been shouting it from the rooftops back in the thirties if it wouldn’t have gotten us both killed.”
“You think I should talk about us?”
“I think that if that’s something you want to do, then you shouldn’t feel pressured to keep it hidden.”
“It would certainly let them all know I’m not homophobic.” Steve thought it over for a minute, and the more he did, the better this idea seemed. “Yeah, I think I should do it.”
*****
The interview started off like every boring interview Steve did back when SHIELD was around to force him to do these things. Even in the future, he was being used as a dancing monkey. Steve didn’t miss it in the slightest. It was all lousy small talk or the same question worded in several different ways. “How are you adjusting to the 2010s?”, “What’s your favorite thing about the modern age?”, and “Do you miss the past?” Steve wasn’t here to talk about all that.
“I know you haven’t done any interviews in a long time,” the interviewer said, “so what made you so eager to come on the show this evening?”
"Well, for anyone who follows me on Twitter, you might know that my account got suspended this morning when I tried to use it. But I have things I want to say, and I wasn’t sure how else to go about it.”
“I saw your tweets from this morning. After quite a while of silence on social media, what brought you back?”
“Bucky and I were watching the news last night, and the guy on the television who was speaking said something that very much upset me. He said that he thought I was disappointed in the progress that this country has made in accepting individuals in the LGBTQ community. And that couldn’t be further from the truth. Last night led me down a rabbithole of discovering all sorts of beliefs that people have ascribed to me over the years. When I first found it all, I was so angry and frustrated that I’m just seen as America’s mascot, a figurehead that supports whatever beliefs people project onto me, rather than as a person with my own set of beliefs. Then after a bit of time to reflect, I realized that a big part of that problem is that I haven’t been vocal enough about what my beliefs are. I have not been using the platform that I have, the pedestal that I have been undeservingly placed upon, to speak up about the issues that matter to me. So I want to make them clear. I am so proud of the strides we have made towards equality for women, people of color, the LGBTQ community, disabled people, immigrants, non-Christians, and those struggling with mental health. The world we live in now is one I never could have imagined back in the forties. But the fight is far from over. The finish line is quite a long way away, and we need to keep working towards becoming better, both as a nation and as individuals. There are still countless issues that need to be addressed and corrected. So many people struggle to make ends meet because the cost of living is simply not able to be met from working jobs that are essential to our society but that refuse to pay their employees a living wage. Corporations are polluting and destroying this planet while covering it up and blaming it on the consumers when the true villain is the endless greed of the wealthy and the capitalist society that enables it. The American healthcare system is an absolute disgrace; there are so many Americans suffering and dying because they can’t afford the insane expenses that come with being sick, injured, or disabled because of a government that puts our taxpayer dollars towards sending our military into other countries unwelcomed to exploit their resources instead of using that money to help its own people. And this is just a few of the many things that desperately need to be amended. There are many people that don’t want us to keep moving forward towards making our world a better place for everyone in it. And everyone includes those in marginalized groups whose rights and livelihoods are under constant attack from people who claim to be patriotic Americans fighting for what’s right. Last night, on a broadcast that reached hundreds of thousands of people, a man tried to use me as a symbol to support his own bigotry. My feelings were deeply hurt by this, and it was on a very personal level. Not only am I an ally to those in the LGBTQ community, but I am a part of it myself. It’s something I’ve not told to many people because I don’t talk about my personal life often, but I do happen to be bisexual. I’ve been in love with a man, Sergeant James Barnes, for the large majority of my life. In the thirties and forties, we never could have dreamed that we would be able to love each other openly without fear of being arrested, beaten, or killed for it. I’m proud to be bisexual, I’m proud to love Bucky Barnes, and I’m proud of how far America has come in its ongoing fight towards equal rights for LGBTQ people. If I must be the mascot of this country, let me stand for love, not hate.”
*****
Unsurprisingly, the clips from Steve’s interview went viral online. Steve eventually got his Twitter account back, and did his best to be a voice for progress. He and Bucky received a lot of support about their coming out, but they received quite a bit of hate as well. They had been well prepared for both.
Steve was relieved that people were done mistaking him for someone he wasn’t. There was no more confusion about what he did and did not stand for; he immediately cleared up any that arose.
Bucky was happy to see Steve at peace. While Twitter was an awful hellscape he never wished to understand, he was grateful for it for replacing the back alleys of Brooklyn as Steve’s favorite fighting ring. He would take an angry Steve furiously typing over an angry Steve beaten within an inch of his life any day. Not that many people could do that kind of damage to Steve anymore, but Bucky still didn’t ever want to see him hurt. Bucky had seen far more than enough violence in his lifetime.
*****
“I’m proud of you, Stevie,” Bucky said one night, not long after this had all gone down.
“For what?” Steve, the loveable idiot, was confused where this had come from.
“For finally finding a way to get your constant need to fight bullies out of your system that doesn’t involve you getting hurt.”
Steve rolled his eyes.
“I’m serious,” Bucky told him. “We’ve finally found a win-win scenario. You get to fight bigoted assholes and I get to have my partner still in one piece at the end of it.”
“I will still fight people physically if I need to.”
“I know, Stevie. I promise I’m not going to try and stop you from punching Nazis, okay? I’m just happy I don’t have to see you in pain anymore.”
“Me too, Buck.”